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Pitches That Worked: Draft

This writer used her culinary and travel expertise to score a transporting feature assignment in this brew book

By Blake Gernstetter -
May 18, 2010Any freelancer will tell you the first pitch doesn't always stick. So when food and travel writer Rebecca Caro's initial proposal to Draft magazine didn't pan out, she persisted. Following a three-week trip to Argentina, she approached managing editor Jessica Daynor with a travel feature idea that told the story of Cerveceria Jerome, an Andean microbrewery. This time around, her research, access, and storytelling ability won the editors over.

But even after her second pitch was assigned, Caro wrote an article that Daynor felt was off-base from the query, focusing too much on travel elements and not enough on the story of the Jerome brewery. Caro persevered, and her rewrite was right on target. Here, both women explain how her query led to a "Trek" feature, Moving Mountains, in the November/December 2009 issue of Draft....

The How to Pitch series is worth its weight in gold. In just the first month I'd already benefited enough to consider the cost of joining well worth it. -- Gaen Murphree